Utilizing the Channeling "Hot Zone"

Hey frens, there has been a lot of heated discussion about bots, scholars, spillover and more. A lot of it completely misses the point though, at least in my opinion. I went more in-depth on why I don’t believe botting to be the primary problem at the moment in the comment below:

So I started playing around with the numbers for spillover radius & rate, but I just couldn’t find a satisfying solution. Reducing them only by a bit would barely have an effect, while reducing them drastically would devalue high level Aaltars. When I went through the blog post on channeling radius it finally clicked though! The mechanic was right there, just not utilized to its full potential (or at all really): The Hot Zone.

It became obvious pretty quickly that the Hot Zone wasn’t so hot after all. The name simply implied that statistically speaking, 10% of the spillover would spawn inside of the inner 10% radius, 20% inside of the inner 20%, etc. This results in a slightly higher drop rate closer to the parcel, but in reality it barely makes a difference (only a single digit % of all spillover spawns in the “Hot Zone”). But what if we actually allocated a fixed % of all spillover to this Hot Zone? :eyes:

Thanks a ton to @letsgobankless for helping me understand & model these concepts, here’s what I’ve found to be the most interesting implementation of the idea:

image

With a radius of 100 Gotchis (compared to the 64x32 measurements of a Spacious), dropping a larger amount of Alchemica inside of the Hot Zone suddenly makes spillover feel much more like actual spillover instead of a random token drop around the map. [Edit: the Hot Zone radius could definitely be reduced, this is just one potential implementation - 50 might be the sweet spot actually]. Imo this would:

  • Create an interesting mechanic around the concept of spillover (as seen in the OG trailer)
  • Add an incentive for players to pick up their spilled tokens instead of channeling & logging off (and writing off the spillover completely)
  • Reduce the advantage of bots, since picking up spillover becomes less of a grinding & more of a channeling mechanic
  • Overall make the Gotchiverse in its current form more interesting without completely turning off spillover

Let me hear your thoughts! :ghost:

Should we introduce the Hot Zone as a mechanic?
  • Yes, allocate the numbers mentioned to the Hot Zone
  • Yes, but allocate different numbers to the Hot Zone
  • No, screw the Hot Zone, I like the current implementation
0 voters
14 Likes

This is a great approach! Not just to this problem, but to other issues that may arise in the future. Lets try first to work within the structures & mechanics that have been laid out. Are there things we can tweak that can have the desired result and also keep the integrity of the game and vision?

Thank you Moon & letsgobankless!

3 Likes

To clarify, are you also suggesting reduce the amount that gets spilled? Or just changing the effectiveness of the hotzone?

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im not too much of a maths guy, but i do like this idea. i voted yes; with the mentioned numbers.

but as always, if the numbers turn out too big or too small it could always be adjusted. but from my pov, its a good idea, also to make channeling a bit more immersive

although im not suggesting that we should not disable spillover for now, (if this is what comes out of the coreprop)

2 Likes

Without doing any modelling, I kinda like this idea. It was always in my mind that I could collect a decent amount of my own spill over if I worked for it a bit. I was shocked when I saw the planned spill over radii and immediately wrote of collecting my own spill over (although collecting other ppls is kind of equivalent outside of the specific time factor of me choosing when to channel)

The one thing I’d worry about are the teleporting bots that could find channellers, drop in on top of them and sweep everything up - hence the genuine need to still find more solid anti-botting measures, in contrast to Moons suggestion that this is a waste of time.

Something like this combined with ideas from HARDKOR around preventing alchemica collection in the 1st minute or two of entering the gotchiverse could lead to a more enjoyable in game experience.

However once farming launches there’ll be a lot more spill over so this may negate some of the above advantages.

I can also anticipate the cries from those with lots of gotchis that’s it’s unfair to make them wait a minute before being able to collect stuff cos it would triple the time they had to spend in game if they wanted to collect anything after channelling (but this feels more like a scholar task than something a massive asset holder would want to do)

1 Like

This would definitely put more alch in the hands of scholars over bots. You go into your discord and post the location of your channeing…. And hopefully you have a bunch of your scholars there waiting to pick up spillage.

Works especially well if all your land is concentrated in one spot….

But allot of players have land all over the place, so in this situation only your own scholars would be able to assist you….

Would be great if all scholars on the guild WL had the ability to spawn with you on your parcel…. Maybe you could set up a waiting room pre spawn… wait until a bunch of scholars are joined and then they spawn with you ready for the channeling. Could even have chat in the waiting room so you can sus them out, build a better relationship.

3 Likes

I never understood the hot zone either, of course if the radius is lower there will be a bigger percentage in that inner circle, but nothing makes it explicitely hotter than the rest so why call it that? The way you augment the percentage with the levels was how I first understood it so it seems intuitive to me. I like this size of 100 because of walls so you would not capture it all even on a spatious

1 Like

Yes, this. Make channeling events a thing

2 Likes

No change to rates or radius, just allocate a larger % to the Hot Zone

2 Likes

Since I’m planning on posting a SigProp fairly soon, I want to clarify one thing: This proposal solely suggests implementing the Hot Zone mechanic as soon as spillover is resumed. A passing CoreProp does not imply such a thing, spillover being paused/resumed definitely needs a separate discussion & proposal.

On another note, I’ve played around with the numbers a bit more and have come to like a slightly higher allocation model. The following numbers assume a Gotchi with 900 Kinship:

image

In combination with a lowered Hot Zone radius to 60, I think we’d be very close to an ideal model from a gameplay perspective. Here’s what that would look like at max zoom on a Spacious:

At level 1 that would be roughly 80 “chunks” of Alchemica to pick up inside of this circle. Someone fully channeling their estate would light the entire neighborhood on fire, could look pretty cool in-game (especially if Alchemica had a small rain/snow animation)!

12 Likes

Yes, fren! This is what I imagined seeing the harvester blow alchemica up into the sky in the teaser. So much more strategy, fun, and engagement happens when the spill feels tied to the channeling. We will see more cooperative play emerge, and fewer people just robotically cycling through their gotchis channeling, never leaving the parcel they spawned on.

6 Likes

Love it! This is much more in-line with expectations after some of the gameplay videos. This is a great way for gotchi/parcel owners to get a good amount of their spillover. Seems like a great thing to add once the DAO decides to turn alchemica spillover on again.

1 Like

I think this actually just makes it work like we though it would. Plz geterdone ASAP.

Part of the lack of fun in this channeling only phase, is that there is zero visual feedback, or opportunity to collect, what you spilled.

2 Likes

yes exactly, botting is not the main problem right now.
we should try to make the game more fluent, and let players to play it by using more strategy, also try to solve subgragh delay problem (I am thinking it now and will write one article about possible solution)

Love the proposal fren thank you! I had always hoped when I channeled that I’d be able to snag a few alchemica for myself. It seems the community is largely on board too!

your Hot zone idea is good, but I feel not completely perfect.
If the alter become level 8 or level 9 and canbe channeled every one or two hours. I will create one bot, and let gotchi wait at this altar, and program as below:

if the altar fired then
search and collect alchemica around 100 area
else
wait
end if

recently most altar below level 3 I think no any problem. but we need to also think of the future, if lots of altars become above level 7, I think it will be profitable to program such bot.

I am sure, in the future, we will see this: lots of gotchis (mostly are bots) stay around the high level altars, like flies :smiley:

1 Like

So, we just look near the high end altars, for these bots. They will be obvious and super not sneaky, and get rekt by the the players who are there on ‘official’ business.

I have another idea: rather than increase the spillover persentage as levels higher, we keep the persentage same at maybe 30%(or even decrease it), but make hot zone smaller as levels higher. for example, level 1, spillover in 100 area, and level 9 spillover in 20area.

the advantage is that: very small alchemica (maybe only 1usd) spread in 20 area if the altar is level 9. it is not profitable for bots wait for one hour and just collect 1 usd alchemical. however for the altar owner, he can randomly fire his altar and immediately colloct these 1usd alchemica around small area, when he find no gotchis around his altar.

1 Like

about the anti botting ways, if you try to find solutions and programed the solution into game, then I am sure there will be another program to cracked this programmed solution.
the only temparary anti botting way I can think out is to add certification before gotchis withdraw the collected alchemicas at black hole (not more than 20 or 30 alchemicas collected). certification can be input random numbers letters or slide the drawings or answer some random questions. if wrong 3times, this address will be blocked for 48 hours automatically (no need block it completed).

I do not believe this idea was ever intended to make it so one gotchi could get all the spillage. It merely makes it possible to use teamwork to make sure that its primarily human players getting the spillage.

The benefits are that the bots get mostly left out in the cold, it builds community and rewards team play, and it encourages owners to actually play the game, as there is going to be a distinct different in the profits you make, if you just go solo, or rent your gotchis out to channel, or if you rent your gotchis to other people and organize them, or you work with other owners to group channel. My initial feeling, is that the most profitable way to do this, would be to bring your scholars with you and you do the channeling, and also get a cut of what they are picking up as you go. Let them channel the lower kin ones on your lower level altars, and you do your high kin high level altars.